June, 1937 



EVOLUTION 



Page Thirteen 



Early Views On Fossils 



By F. M. CARPENTER 

 Dcpariment of Paleontology, Harvard Vviversity 



Fossils ha\e probably been the cause of more curious 

 speculation than any other earthly objects. Fossil shells, 

 crinoids, plants, and even bones are common in most parts 

 of the world and did not escape the notice of the ancient 

 philosophers and writers. The Egyptians apparently had 

 no idea of their nature, although they used petrified logs 

 for the foundations of desert roads. The ancient Greeks, 



FOSSIL INSECTS 



Ask your t'lindamentalist friend to explain these fossils 



howeser, correctl\' recognued them as the remains of once- 

 living organisms. Xenophanes (6th century B.C.) stated 

 that sea shells high up in the hills of Malta indicated that 

 the hills had been periodicallj' submerged under the sea. 

 Other Greek writers, such as Xanthus. Pythagorus, and 

 Herodotus, also accepted this explanation of the origin of 

 the remains of marine shells in inland regions. Theo- 

 phrastus (300 B.C.j, however. belie\ed that fossil bones 

 were produced by a plastic force in the earth. During 

 the early middle ages this view was the accepted one. the 

 correct idea of Xenophanes and his followers being aban- 

 doned. This was largely due to the influence of the 

 Christian Church. If anyone who observed sea shells im- 

 bedded in rocks forming a mountain range \entured to 

 express his belief that the mountains consisted of materials 

 accumulated under the sea after living creatures appeared 

 on the earth, he was in danger of being punished for 

 heresy; for according to the Holy Writ, land and sea were 

 separated on the 3rd day of creation, but life did not begin 

 until the 5th day. .'Mso. the obvious conclusion from the 

 evidence of fossils that the material forming the rocks 

 must have accumulated o\er man\- thousands of years 

 was contrary to the received interpretation of the amount 

 of time which had passed since creation. It is not surpris- 

 ing, therefore, that the favorite mode of avoiding the 

 difTiculty was simply to deny that the fossils were re- 

 mains of living creatures, and to regard them as freaks of 

 nature or "formed stones". Some of the medie\al writers 

 supposed that the plastic force producing the fossils came 

 from the stars instead of the earth. 



This interpretation of fossils persisted without serious 

 question for about 1.500 years, until Leonardo da \inci 

 ^ advanced the view that fossils were the remains of animals 

 that once li\'ed on the sea floor. Opposed lo this idea two 

 new explanations, conforming lo the Christian teachings, 

 were invented. One supposed that the fossils were placed 

 in the earth by the Creator to deceive man; the other 

 claimed that they were the remains of animals killed 

 during the great Deluge of the time of Noah. This latter 



idea became very popular anti resulted in the formation 

 of the "school of deluvialists". During the 17th century 

 several additional absurd explanations were offered, in- 

 cluding that of Martin Lister (1670), who believed that 

 different kinds of rocks produced different types of fossils; 

 and that of Whiston who suggested in his "New Theory of 

 the Earth" that after the fall of man the earth began to 

 rotate, and on November 18, 2349 B.C., it passed through 

 the tail of a comet, which caused the formation and de- 

 position of all fossils! 



During the 18th century a series of in\estigators, not- 

 abl\- Liebnitz, Hooke and (juettard, attacked the deluvia- 

 lists' explanations as well as the other fantastic ones and 

 demonstrated the true biological interpretation of fossils; 

 although of course the dogmatic attitude of the Christian 

 Church was not changed for more than a century later. 

 .\t the present time individuals can still be found who 

 believe that all fossils were formed in the "flood" or were 

 in\ented to deceive and mislead mankind. 



In view of the influence which the biblical story exert- 

 i-'ti on the interpretation of fossils, it is not surprising 

 that the medievals tried to associate the fossils with char- 

 acters mentioned there. At some localities bones or skele- 

 tons were found which because of their great size were 

 determined as the remains of some of the giants mentioned 

 in the Old Testament. One of these, found in Austria in 

 l(i45. for example, was supposed to be the skeleton of 

 (^g. (King of Bashan) whose bed is recorded in Deuteron- 

 (imv as being 18 feet long. AH of these bones were shown 

 later (^about 1796) b>' Cuvier to be the remains of mam- 

 moths. A tooth displayed by a Roman Catholic Church 

 in V'alencia was supposed to have belonged to St. Christ- 

 opher; and a large bone, regarded as a Saint's arm, was 

 borne through the streets in reverent triumph whenever 

 rain was needed. Both the tooth and the arm were sub- 

 sequently' pro\en to belong to mammoths. Perhaps the 

 most famous of these cases was the skeleton described by 

 Scheuchzer from Switzerland. He named the specimen 





Ancient I.ifc Mistor.v o£ the Earth : D. Appleton & Co. 



HOMO DKLXIVII TESTIS 



From an ohi woiiihiit of the original sperimen. still preserved in 

 the Haarlem Museum 



"Homo Deluvii Testis", supposing it to be the remains 

 of one of the infamous men who brought about the calam- 

 il\- of the flood. Cuvier later shoWed that the skeleton was 

 that of a large salamander! 



.Most civilized people to-day recognize the real nature 

 of a fossil; but that knowledge has been gained only after 

 eighteen centuries of misunderstanding. 



